Schedule:
May 23rd Thursday 7pm: Preliminary Instruction and shop tour. This will speed things up for anyone interested in demos.
Saturday & Sunday 9am – 3pm: Demos & instruction on the pass. 
Additional information:
Its all about the wind: usually the best wind leads from the top of the pass northward towards Twinning peak. This offers some great terrain for UpSkiing. See you up there!!
Come stop by the shop on Saturday MAY 18TH for the Roaring Fork Studio Tour roaringforkstudiotour.org/
Independence Pass Opening weekend. This is always the most fun weekend of the year. Bring your ski gear, and come Upskiing with us. Tenitively the dates will be May 24th-27th pending weather. Be savy, and bring your camping, boating, biking, and/or climbing gear and make it a full multi-sport weekend. RSVP to Kevin (or contact with questions) if you plan to come 303 709 5359 or info at upski dot com
May 13th Juneau…Part of the Alaska story:
I met up with friends in Juneau a few weeks ago now. Our plans for the Juneau Ice Fields were cut short by poor weather. Juneau outskirts had just received 1-2 feet of snow and more snow/rain was in the forecast for the whole week. Our first quick outing at the closed Eagle Crest resort found DEEP snow… and everything was sluffing which made for a fun ride.
The helicopters & planes need line of sight to fly and land. With the cloud cover so low our prospects of catching a heli-ride onto the glacier seemed un-likely.
Instead we loaded up the Toyota got on the ferry heading North to Skagway in search of better weather on White Pass (the US/Canadian border)
Not to be confused with White Pass Ski area in Washington.
Phil has been pushing to go check out White Pass for the last few years. He lived in Skagway years ago before the road was built… and spoke very highly of the potential up there. And he was right!! The pass is central within the Chilkoot mountain range and puts you up to 3000′ (with with surrounding mountains generally between 5000-6500ft at their summits). The mountains are partially glaciated (at least for a few more years) and are very plausable for all ranges of ski & mountaineering experience levels.
We spent our first week on the pass with a mix of skiing, & upskiing but were still plagued by poor visibility and above average AVY conditions. One of my favorite UpSki spots is/was this highly featured gulley that channels the wind really well, and you could climb the steep rocky sidewalls, & hop off the cliffs…. totally a different mindset than any other jumping I’ve done. The gulley actually starts more than mile below what the following picture shows. Tons of terrain surrounding it… but on a poor visablity day, you can stay in the gulley and not get lost. Plus this is all a road side attraction… no skins required.
The prettiest ascent was on Feather Peak (or Mountain??) Winds were super light… but it was manageable with a little skinning to line up with the wind.
sticking to the features in a whiteout:
More pics, video, and stories to come. Editing required first!
Also… Indy Pass opening weekend May 25th-26th We’ll be there, will you??
This trip has been in question all season… but, plane tickets were purchased Friday (before going out UpSkiing), so now we are going!!… and departure is Thursday: Quick… Pack!!
Destination: Juneau Ice Field
Goal: have a damn good time… and put our equipment to the test in bigger mountains.
Puzzle Pieces: Fly to Juneau, Hele/bush plane to glacier, spend week or more on the ice, wish we didn’t have to come home, be back in time for memorial weekend on Independence pass
I’d post photos… but they wouldn’t be mine… so that will wait until afterwards. But pics online look incredible. Ice/glacier surface is at ~4000′ with peaks rising above 8000′.
This glacier was also discussed in the recent movie: Chasing Ice which covers the work of the Extreme Ice Survey. If you haven’t seen this film… you need to!… check out the trailer http://www.chasingice.com/see-the-film/trailer/
this has been on the to-do list for a while…
Up and over Mt Sopris with an UpSki…
In the above picture: starting in the bottom right corner, ascending the back side to the left summit, then descending to the bottom left corner
not much else to say other than awesome! 10 miles start to finish, >6,000′ of ascent to summit, ski Sopris!
Winds were gnarly, ie ascending 1000 ft in minutes. I look forward to taking a second lap on it… with a little more snow cover & a little less wind
I was hoping for winds up to 40mph… but in reality, summit winds were more in the 60-100mph range… thus staying ~400ft below the summit with the UpSki was prudent. The final push to the summit (over rocks & snow) was skinning.
As a quick summary: start at avalanche creek 6700′
climb (approach shoes) to ~10,500′, put on ski boots and bootpack/skin to 11,000′
UpSki to ~12,5000, below west summit descend and traverse east to UpSki ascend back to ~12,500 below East summit.
Skin to East summit (winds + exposed rock = to dangerous for UpSki)
Ski-descent standard route to Thomas Lakes & trailhead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMQcUtu1jYM&feature=youtube_gdata
The dry-ground ascent from avalanche creek is actually a cakewalk… if you do it right. clean 3rd class scrambling the whole way. little or no loose rock. Do it wrong, and you’ll find 10′ deep mud-slide channels, sketchy loose rock, and other things that could kill you.
We’ve got great conditions yet to come this season. May will be good!… but clock is ticking, time to pack for Alaska ASAP!
This came about last night over 1/2 dozen bottles of wine.
Our logo image is actually a snowboarder UpSkiing. In my mind I was really thinking he was Tele skiing… I mean come on… what’s sexier than tele skiing??? ps… no, I don’t tele, but my girlfriend does!
Does this mean we need a new logo??… probably not, but I considered it. The image came from a photo of JH SNOWBOARDING up above 12,000ft… before my time.
We now have bumper stickers and patches up for grabs.
We spent last week in the San Juans. Its Awesome down there!!… good snow, good friends, & good snow make for a good time!
a 45minute skin from the top Red Mountain Pass is the standard kiting playground: McMillian peak (12,800′). McMillian has broad west facing slopes that draw in great wind. There are huts www.skihuts.com & www.skistpaul.com just below treeline making overnight access to this terrain very easy.
That’s the big radio sign just left of the canopy on the summit of McMillian. We topped out every highpoint along the ridge to the background noise of gunshots coming from lower in the valley… All in good fun!
We made it over to Telluride as well… Tomboy & Ingram Basins are calling!!!… and some bigger ascents too! Its off to Summit County next week for more fun!
Info@UpSki.com
what to do on a sunny day before going skiing?
see how close we can get to pegging an UpSki on a solid object. Yes thats our building right there. The turbulence created by wind blowing around the building is pretty fun. Its actually pretty easy not to snag the canopy on the building even with such close proximity.
… drying out a canopy in the Confluence Overlook parking lot:
ps. someone showed some GoPro footage a year or two ago of someone passing by a concrete structure surrounded by barbed wire at terrifying speed & proximity. The UpSkier misses the the fence & structure… but its a real WTF!!